


On Your Mind

by Naomida



Series: The Amazing(ly shitty) Spiderman [8]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Twins, F/M, Gen, Johnny is the real friendly superhero, M/M, pancakes and friendships are made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:18:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7452622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naomida/pseuds/Naomida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So you got a boyfriend now, uh?” Johnny asked after long minutes of awkward silence.<br/>“No.”<br/>“A girlfriend?”<br/>“Nope.”<br/>“Come on, don't tell me that your one night stand left you pancakes and a cute post-it or I'm gonna be jealous.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Your Mind

_Sixty hours,_ Hilly told herself as she exited the train-station's drugstore, the starbucks cup in her right hand burning her palm and her large sunglasses not enough to block the bright morning light. New York was already up and running and she knew she should be too, but jet-lag was killing her and that little urgent trip to the drugstore was forcing her to think about stuff that were totally distracting her from her long to-do list of the day.

She waited until she was sitting in the subway to pop the Plan B she had just bought inside her mouth and wash it down with scorching hot coffee, burning her tongue and her throat the whole way down and making her cough and wince for a good minute. _That's what you get for not using condoms_ , she thought, glancing out the window to watch the dark tunnels pass by, her mind constantly trying to go back to Lagos and one infamous mercenary.

It was seriously ridiculous. She had so many other things to worry and think about – like the fact that she had just gone back from a quick trip to the other side of the ocean just to grab one tiny item and had no idea where to hide it, or that there were photos of Spiderman almost dying all over the papers this morning.

She should have known that Peter would choose the moment she left the country for only _sixty little hours_ to almost get killed by some guy made of sand.

The only good news was that she, at least, had gotten laid. Several times in a row. And the morning after.

And there she was, thinking about Wade again.

She fidgeted a little, the stitches in her side making her uncomfortable – because she shouldn't have had sex so many times _just_ after getting shot point-blank – and took another sip of her coffee, managing to burn herself _again_.

She really needed to get a grip.

The subway stopped at her station just as she was checking her phone – and totally not hoping for a text from a certain someone. Aunt May had tried to call her once the night before, but Hilly had been too tired to cross her living-room and answer it. She also really didn't want to get into another fight with her aunt, which would have probably happened seeing as May had called her after Peter had been attacked.

Really, some days Hilly wondered if Peter had finally told his aunt about his secret identity just to piss Hilly off. He sure as hell had moved to the Avengers Tower with that goal in mind.

Sighing and stepping out in the street, Hilly finished her now pleasantly warm coffee in three big sips, ditched the cup in a trashcan and entered the yoga studio she pretended to work at under five minutes, a new personal record.

Charlize was behind the front counter and smiled at her without pausing the rapid-fire Spanish she was spitting into the phone, apparently mad at the person on the other side of it – and Hilly was feeling very sorry for them because she had once saw Charlize break a guy's collarbone using only one hand and it had only been because he had asked for her number more than once.

“If he can't take no for an answer, I'm gonna show him.” she had snorted when Hilly had just gaped at her and the sobbing guy.

“Parker are you here?!” called Derek from the back of the studio and Hilly quickly started walking down the hallway to join him in his office. She was late and truthfully really not looking forward seeing him but she didn't have a choice if she didn't want him to get suspicious – although she was pretty sure the guys who had came out of nowhere in Lagos had already reported back to him that some girl fitting her description had already taken what he was after.

This whole thing was such a mess, she couldn't wait for this stupid job to be over.

Derek Lawson was sitting behind his big metal desk when she entered his office, and he smiled distractedly at her while gesturing for a chair and typing on his laptop with his other hand.

He was a remarkable man, she had learned in all the months she had worked with him. Once she had passed her original disdain of him from when he had tasered and kidnapped her, she had realized that he was a powerful ally. He had taught her how to fight, how to go unnoticed and how to pull off the kind of stunt she had just pulled off in Lagos.

“How do you feel?” he asked without turning away from his screen.

Hilly felt a sense of dread overwhelm her but managed to keep a poker face on. Don't let anything show, everything is totally normal.

“Fine, why?”

He sent her a weird look.

“I've seen the news, Spiderman almost died.”

“Oh.” she said, immediately relaxing – which probably said something about her quality as a sister. “Yeah it's uh… I mean, he's okay so it's fine. I'm fine.”

“You're sure? Because I can give you half the day off if you want to go see him.”

“I don't even know where he is.”

“Avengers Tower medical bay. Are you guys still not talking?”

She shook her head and looked down at her lap. Half a day off would be perfect – her stitches were getting very uncomfortable and she didn't have the energy to spar or learn how to code that morning – but Derek would immediately know if she didn't visit her brother, and she really wasn't looking forward to visiting the Avengers Tower again after her last visit.

“I'm fine, seriously, I don't need to visit him. My aunt would have called me if it was serious.” – lie, but her boss didn't need to know that – “What's my planning like today?”

“Undercover the whole day.” he said, turning back to his laptop.

Hilly grimaced and absentmindedly cupped a hand over her bullet wound. Pretending to be a yoga teacher wasn't that hard usually thanks to her superpowers, but stretching so much with stitches in her side was going to be hell.

“Then you have that thing tonight at the call center.”

“Right, the thing.” she nodded.

Derek sent her a long look, one eyebrow raised, and Hilly immediately stopped touching her side to cross her arms instead.

“Are the instructions still the same?”

“Yes, I want it to be quick. Break in, take what you need without being seen and break out.”

“Can I know what SHIELD wants with a call center's client database?”

“It's classified.” he replied, a smirk on the corner of the mouth, and turned back to his laptop, dismissing her with a flick of the wrist.

Hilly rolled her eyes and quickly got up and left his office, glad to be away from him.

 

 

***

 

 

With the way things had been going recently, she should have known that the whole call center mission was bound to end badly. She still wasn't sure whether the whole thing had been a setup since the beginning or not, but knew one thing: Derek could go to hell with his stupid missions.

She managed to limp to her apartment without making it too obvious that some guys had attacked her with assault-rifles and chainsaws, out of every potential weapon they could have found, just forty minutes earlier and didn't immediately realize that someone was standing in the middle of her living-room, with the lights and the TV on and everything.

If someone asked her, she was going to blame the sleep-deprivation.

“Waoh, you look like hell.” said the person, who really should be glad that Hilly was too tired and bleeding to react because her first instinct would have been to either shoot or punch.

“When will you guys finally stop stalking me?” she grumbled as an answer, slamming the front-door shut behind her, letting her keys, jacket and shoes on the floor and stumbling to the open kitchen.

The superhero standing next to her coffee-table only raised an eyebrow while she opened her freezer, got a pack of frozen peas out and pressed it against the right side of her face without even wrapping it in a cloth.

“Did you get hurt? I thought you weren't superheroing anymore. I didn't see Spidey out tonight.”

Hilly just glared at him.

“Yeah okay, you don't want me to say the S-word in front of you, I get it.” he huffed, rolling his eyes.

“Johnny, what the hell do you want?”

The Torch looked down at the floor and started shuffling instead of replying, making her sigh, put the peas down and go looking for the anti-inflammatory medicine – it was probably already too late for her migraine, but maybe it could make the ache in the rest of her body less horrible.

“If it's about my brother I know he got hurt, I actually have a TV and internet.”

“I just wanted to let you know that he's fine, more or less.”

Hilly met his gaze when she turned around to grab a glass and she didn't miss the worried furrow of his brows as he looked her up and down.

She still didn't know if Peter had told him about her or if he had put two and two together himself – or even if his sister had told him – and she sure as hell didn't understand why he felt the need to keep her up to date about Peter's whereabouts by breaking into her apartment once every month, but she had to admit that it was nice to know that someone cared so much about her brother. It made her feel less guilty about not talking to Peter anymore and keeping what she was doing a secret.

“As long as it's you standing here and not him or our aunt, I guess I have nothing to worry about, uh?” she replied, breaking their eye-contact by looking down at a glass that she started filling with water.

She downed the water and the medicine, pretending that Johnny's blue eyes unblinkingly staring at her weren't making her uncomfortable, and put the empty glass down to grab a cloth, the peas and put the homemade ice-pack back on the most pulsating part of her face.

“Should someone be worried about _you_?” he finally asked, taking several steps in her direction.

“I'm fine.” she sighed, wondering if the bullet wound in her side had reopened.

The stitches were killing her more than ever, but she knew Wade was better than most professional when it came to it and that was probably the only part of her stomach that wasn't bleeding in any way.

She couldn't believe she was still thinking about Wade.

“Really?” asked Johnny, having no idea of what she was thinking about and taking more steps in her direction, “Because you look like you're five seconds away from passing out.”

“And I'm five seconds away from throwing something at you if you don't leave me the fuck alone and leave my home.” she snapped.

His eyebrows did something weird, as if he was hurt and getting even more worried and pondering on what to do all at the same time, but he just raised his hands in the universal surrender gesture and started walking backward in the direction of the front-door – and the fact that he was familiar enough with her apartment that he could move through it like that made her want to burn the whole building down and move to another continent without looking back.

“Look, I don't want to upset you so I'm just going to go home, but don't forget that I'm here if you need something. And so is Peter.”

Scoffing, Hilly just turned her back to him and waited until she was sure that he was gone to finally give in to the pain throbbing all through her body and double over, gritting her teeth and trying to keep it together until she was at least laying on her bed.

 

 

***

 

 

Hilly woke up two days later to someone else _entirely_ standing in her living-room.

“ _Jesus_ , you look like death warmed over!” exclaimed Wade, making her snort and immediately bent over to clutch her middle in pain. “Is getting the shit beaten out of you your hobby?” he asked as he quickly crossed the room to stand at her side and gently put a hand on her shoulder.

“I wish,” she replied, smiling crookedly up at him, “that way I would at least get some fun out of it.”

He took his mask and gloves off instead of replying, throwing them on her couch, and gently grabbed her by the arms to help her walk to the closest armchair.

“You've bled through your t-shirt,” he commented once she had managed to sit down in a position that didn't make her grimace too much.

“I know.” she sighed.

“You're gonna have to take it off so I can see if you're still bleeding.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but his face was serious and there was not a single trace of amusement in his tone or his body-language, so she just sighed and took her t-shirt off, hissing between her teeth the whole time.

“Damn.” he said, frowning and kneeling next to her legs to get a closer look at the set of bruises and cuts littered all over her skin. “What the hell were you attacked with?”

“Assault-riffles and chainsaws. It looks worse than it actually is though.”

The look he gave her clearly showed that he didn't believe a single word.

“I can't believe I thought for even a second that you could actually go by your days without being severely injured.” he sighed, poking a finger at a rare bit of untouched skin, right above the bullet wound he had given her.

“Not my fault if you're naive.” she replied, smirking down at him when he raised his eyebrows at her. “Come on now, grab the painkillers and bandages in my bathroom and get to work, I'm not keeping you around just so you can ogle my half-naked and purple body.”

Laughing, Wade got up and did just as he was told, not forgetting to ruffle her already messy hair on his way and it caught her in the chest, just like a kick, how glad she was to have reached out to him and have him back in her life.

 

 

***

 

 

“This is bad,” started Derek, pinching the bridge of his nose and frowning hard enough that it looked like it hurt, “but I have worse news.”

Hilly sighed deeply and tucked her hair behind her left ear, already regretting getting out of her apartment that morning.

She had skipped work the day before to get better – and totally _not_ to spend some time with Wade who was probably still vegetating on her couch right this moment – and she really hadn't been looking forward to going back to work.

“Hit me, I think I'm ready.” she said when it was clear that her boss was waiting for her to say something.

“The Avengers.” he said.

“No.” she immediately replied, getting up and turning to the door with the clear intent to leave and never come back.

“Come on Parker, it's not like I'm the one making the decisions!”

She stopped right in front of his office's door just so she could turn on her heels and glare at him.

“I know it sucks, and I'm as lost as you as to why you would need to steal something from them but _please_ , we need to work together.”

“You mean _I_ need to work while you stay in your nice little office, far away from people trying to shoot me.”

“I'll be in the Tower with you this time.”

“But not in the middle of the action though, am I right?” she asked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.

Derek frowned even harder, his lips thinning, and he didn't try to get her to stay when she left.

 

 

***

 

 

“Look, I'm not saying Charmed is _bad_ , God knows this shit is awesome, I'm just saying, Sabrina is better!” said Wade, handing her a Pringles can as she sat down next to him on the couch.

She took a handful of chips, wondering for a moment where the hell he had found them, and let him press their shoulders together.

“I'm a hundred percent sure that you're only saying that because Sabrina the Teenage Witch had an evil twin.”

“You know me so well.” he smirked, chewing loudly on chips as the commercials on TV were finally leaving place to the rest of the episode of Charmed they had been watching.

He had broken into her stash of Deadpool clothes, as she liked to call it, and was now wearing gray sweatpants and the red hoodie that had been his once upon a time instead of his costume, which was nice, even though she was already making plans to get the hoodie back from him. He had also slept in her bed during the last night, right next to her, but hadn't attempted to touch or kiss her. In fact, he hadn't even made any flirting jokes, which was weird and starting to make her a little paranoid because now that what had happened in Lagos had actually happened and he was acting as if _nothing at all_ had changed, she had _no_ idea how to act around him.

The fact that he was pressing the left side of his body flush against the right side of hers and chuckling softly at the television didn't help her get her thoughts into some semblance of order.

She started eating the chips she had taken just so she had something to do other than staring at his profile.

“You know,” he said after about five minutes of silence, just as Phoebe and Cole started making out on the screen, “I'm actually glad I didn't text before coming.”

“Why?” she asked, turning to look at him only to find that he was staring intently at the TV.

“You would have probably found some bullshit excuse to not see me straight away just so I wouldn't know that you're hurt.”

Starting to chew on her lips, Hilly actually considered it.

“I don't know.” she replied after a moment, shrugging against him, “You're actually the only person that I let see me in this state.”

“Yeah?” he asked, sounding almost distracted, but she wasn't dupe and saw the way he sharply glanced at her.

“I literally let you make sure that I wasn't going to die after being hit with a sword in the head. And I didn't even know your name or what you looked like at that time. I'm pretty sure I've never let my life between the hands of someone like I've done with you.”

 _I trust you with my life_ , she wanted to say, but his blue eyes were already too intense and making her feel hot in the face _._

He seemed to read it in her eyes though, because he nodded slightly, gave her a very soft smile and turned back to the TV screen right at the same time as he was sliding his left hand inside her right one, squeezing her fingers gently and pressing more fully against her side.

Hilly really tried to keep the smile from showing on her face, but it was pretty hard to do.

 

 

***

 

 

Sometimes, Hilly really admired Derek's determination.

Wade groaned, rolling to his belly to bury his face in her pillow, his left arm ending around her waist because of the movement. Hilly wasn't even sure how she had ended up in bed or what time it was but she was tired as hell and opted for rolling to her side so she was flushed against Wade's side instead of getting up and answering the door.

The merc grunted, sounding strangely pleased compared to seconds ago, and Hilly kept one eye open as she caressed up his back with one hand until she could curl her fingers over his nape, smiling at the goosebumps following her fingertips.

The pounding on the front-door disappeared just as her phone started ringing, making her groan this time.

“He _really_ can't take a hint.” she muttered, making Wade snort.

He grunted again when she slid a leg between his and managed to move even closer to him.

“Just cause you're awake doesn't mean I _want_ to be.” he said, his words muffled by the pillow.

“Are you turning down sex? Because I clearly remember you offering me your body for Christmas and I wasn't expecting the tables to turn like that to be honest.”

Turning his face in her direction, Wade opened one baby-blue eye to peek at her.

“You're hurt.” he commented, his tone clearly suggesting that it should have appeared like a totally logical and obvious explanation.

“So was I last week, and that didn't stop you.”

His fingertips started moving along her back, sliding under her t-shirt and drawing small shapes along her spine as he opened his other eye and turned so he was on his side too, facing her.

“It should have, but I was totally thinking with my dick and as much as I want to regret it, I just can't bring myself to.”

Biting down on a smirk, Hilly gently squeezed the back of his neck and took a second to appreciate the silence when her phone _finally_ stopped ringing for more than four seconds.

“I should be used to your weird bursts of chivalry. I _really_ should.” she murmured when it was clear that Derek had finally abandoned and wasn't going to call her again for at least two hours. “Does that mean that in two days, when I'll be all healed up and better, you'll finally do more than hold my hand and steal all of my blankets?”

“I'll let you sit on my face all day long, I promise.” he smirked.

She blushed at that, because even if she was never going to admit it, she had been thinking about it a little – because come on, how could she _not_ think about it after what had happened in their hotel room's shower right before they had left for the airport, with Wade on his knees in front of her, the water falling down his back making him all sleek and glistening as she had tried to not scream too loudly and find something to hold on to while he was giving her the best orgasm of her entire life and completely shattering her world.

“You can't take that back now.” was the only thing she replied, which made Wade beam and caused her to blush even redder because it was clear that he could read her like an open book.

 

 

***

 

 

Hilly woke up again several hours later to an empty bed and her twin brother's boyfriend staring at her from her bedroom's doorway.

“Before you start throwing things at me, I want you to know that I just came to check that you're still alive.”

“How did you even get in!?” she mumbled, hoping that this was just a hallucination or some kind of nightmare.

“I made a key.” he smiled, as if that sentence wasn't totally worrying and creepy as hell.

Grabbing the pillow Wade had been sleeping on, Hilly pulled it over her face and screamed a little.

She was almost regretting the good old days when Johnny had acted like she was his boyfriend. _Almost_. Because Peter had been a huge asshole to do that to the both of them and that one time she had been kissed by the Torch had been awkward as hell.

Now that she was thinking about it, she didn't even know if Peter had told Johnny that this was her under the mask.

“Someone left pancakes in the kitchen by the way, and I'm a hundred percent sure that you didn't make them since there's a post-it with a heart drawn to it sticking to the plate.” added the superhero when she finally stopped screaming and trying to smother herself to death.

She threw the pillow at him, hitting him square in the face and feeling weirdly satisfied by the 'humph!' sound he made.

“I swear to god Torch, I'm gonna call the cops on you. Or worse, TMZ. They'll probably pay me a lot for an interview where I let the whole world see your stalking nature.”

“As if paparazzi were scaring me anymore,” he snorted.

“I'm gonna tell your sister then.”

That got him to shut up – but not leave, because he followed her to the kitchen when she rolled out of her bed and pretended to not be staring when she grabbed the post-it that Wade had left and stuck it to the fridge's door before pouring _a lot_ of maple syrup on the pancakes.

“So you got a boyfriend now, uh?” he asked after long minutes of awkward silence, getting up and joining the coffee machine to start making a pot of coffee – and Hilly tried to tell herself that she wasn't jealous at the way he seemed to totally know how the damn machine worked when she had spent a whole month trying to turn it on before abandoning and starting to buy instant coffee.

“No.”

“A girlfriend?”

“Nope.”

“Come on, don't tell me that your one night stand left you pancakes and a cute post-it or I'm gonna be jealous.”

Rolling her eyes, Hilly tried to put an entire pancake in her mouth, failed and started to choke. Snorting, Johnny waited for the coffee to be finished, poured her a cup that he put down on the table in front of her before crossing the room to stand behind her and start to tap her on the back.

She managed to not die the most embarrassing death ever and glared at the blond when he sat down in front of her at her kitchen table and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“You know, at first I thought that you were _way_ too cool to be Peter's twin, but I kinda see the resemblance here.” he said, smirking.

“I _will_ kick your ass.” she warned, dumping sugar into her coffee and taking a long sip.

 _God_ , it was _so_ much better than the instant crap she had been buying.

“Alright, but you still haven't answered my question.” continued Johnny, stealing a pancake from her plate.

She let him eat it, because as usual Wade had made enough to feed a small army – and considering that even her couldn't finish everything despite her metabolism said a lot.

“No one left me anything.” she said, “I don't see any pancakes or post-its here and no matter what you report to my brother, it won't be true.”

Johnny frowned.

“Wait, you think I come here to report back to Peter?”

“Yeah, or maybe your sister since she apparently fancies me or something,” replied Hilly, shrugging. “Actually, I don't really care who you're reporting to, I just want you to leave me alone and stop entering my apartment while I'm asleep because it is highly creepy and one of these days I'm gonna snap and probably harm you.”

Johnny just gaped at her.

“Peter doesn't even _know_ that I come here!”

“Oh great, so you're here out of pity, how much better is that?”

The blond visibly flinched and looked down in what Hilly decided to interpret as shame.

“First time I saw you, you were badly injured and completely by yourself and I _can't_ understand why Peter ever acted like that with you,” he said in a quiet voice “but I'm not as stupid as I look and I know that you have the same powers as him and well… you seem like you get into a lot of trouble.”

Brows furrowing, Hilly wondered for a second if this was Johnny Storm's super creepy way at trying to become her friend, but she quickly cast this thought very far away, because he couldn't possibly like her if he hanged around Peter long enough – and she knew that he did.

“I'm actually an MMA fighter, that's why I get bruised up so often. Now get the hell out before I really call your sister.” she said.

Johnny sighed deeply, his shoulders slumping, but he did as he was told and didn't look back as he exited the apartment.

It was better this way.

 

 

***

 

 

“I am not stupid, Hillary.” declared Aunt May, frowning down at her as much as she could considering that Hilly had almost ten centimeters on her.

“I'm not saying that you are.” replied Hilly, wrapping the red hoodie tighter around her and trying to look like she wasn't pressing her nose to the collar.

For the first time since approximately a week after Wade had given it to her, it smelled _just_ like him and Hilly was just _this_ side of desperate to do this kind lame things. She had also taken a photo of him sleeping right before getting out of bed that morning and had wondered the whole way to her Aunt's if she had been so horny that Wade's dick had made her this foolish and stupid after just one spectacular night.

Maybe the fact that she referred to it as _spectacular_ explained a lot.

“Why won't you tell me who it is?”

“Because there is no one.” she insisted, making her aunt's frown turn into a scowl before she was huffing in annoyance and turning around to leave the living-room.

Sighing, Hilly joined the couch, brought the hoodie's hood over her head and closed her eyes. She loved her Aunt more than anyone else in the world, appart maybe from Peter, but she really wished she could skip their weekly Saturday lunch from time to time. She already had so many things to worry about, like Derek's increasingly hysteric voice messages and texts or the fact that the very important USB key she had stolen in Lagos was still being hidden inside of her bra for lack of a better hiding place; the last thing she needed was to be interrogated by her Aunt about her sort of lack of kinda weird love life.

The front door opened before Hilly could brood more and, feeling her heart take a big plunge to the bottom of her stomach, she watched as Peter and _all four members of the Fantastic Four_ walked into her childhood home.

“Oh.” said Peter when their eyes met, his whole face falling.

Funnily enough, she knew she was probably wearing the same facial expression.

 

 

***

 

 

She waited until the end of lunch for Aunt May and Ben Grimm to get up and pretend to go serve coffee before ducking upstairs and locking herself in the bathroom.

Wade answered his phone after two rings.

“Sup?” he asked, sounding distracted.

“I need you to find an army of aliens and convince them to invade New York in the next ten to twenty minutes.”

“I'm pretty sure I don't know any aliens, but let me call the X-Men and get back to you, okay?”

Rolling her eyes, Hilly walked to the bathtub after making sure that the door was locked, and sat on its edge, her left knee bouncing nervously.

“What's going on for real?” asked Wade after a whole minute of silence.

“Spider-man and the Fantastic Four are downstairs and I'm pretty sure my Aunt is going to bring out a birthday cake any second now.”

“ _It's your birthday_?!” yelled Wade, loud enough that she had to hold her phone away form her ear, grimacing.

“It was last week,” she said, “and don't make a big deal out of it, alright?”

“Are you kidding me?! And wait, are you telling me that for your birthday you f _ucked me_?! Was I your present to yourself?! Oh my god, _you used me_!”

Rolling her eyes, Hilly couldn't help the smile tugging at her lips.

“I didn't, who the hell do you think I am? Deadpool?” she asked.

He scoffed.

“You're right, that's the kind of shit Deadpool would pull off. You're all healed up now, right?”

“I wonder why you're suddenly asking about this.”

“Yeah, I bet you do.”

Biting down on her lower lip, Hilly took a second to congratulate herself on giving him his chance back when she only thought of him as an annoying stalker, because he was now her only friend and she dearly needed one.

“So anyway,” he said after clearing his throat, “you were saying something about me saving you from what sounds like the most awkward birthday party ever, and trust me I'm kind of a pro in that department.”

“I don't even want to know.” she said before he could elaborate. “But yeah basically, I'm calling because I need to get the hell out of here before I'm forced to blow candles and take pictures with Mister Fantastic.”

“Ah, how I wish someone had a recording of your face when you saw them arrive.” he sighed dreamily.

“Shut up.” she smiled. “Can you help me or not?”

“ _Well_ ,” he started, dragging the word for two beats too long, “I could set your apartment on fire.”

“Okay, I'm calling my boss, he's better at this than you.”

“He also sent ninjas after you, if I remember correctly, but who am I to judge?”

Rolling her eyes, she ended the call.

 

 

***

 

 

Derek _did_ help her. In fact, he knocked on the front door just as Hilly was being asked by a very smug looking Johnny to smile for a picture with Peter and pretended that there was an emergency at work that needed to be taken care of immediately.

Everyone except Peter looked a little disappointed – but Hilly felt as relieved as her twin looked and she made sure to hug Aunt May for at least ten seconds before bailing.

She got home two hours later, after ice cream and a lot of convincing from Derek for her to not quit SHIELD and do that one mission she really didn't want to have anything to do with.

She still wasn't sure about the mission, but managed to smile at Wade when he greeted her cheerfully and invited her to join him on the couch.

“So, you survived the birthday party from hell, huh?”

“It was more like a birthday lunch from hell, but yeah my boss helped me bail.”

“The ninja boss.”

“He's not a ninja.” she replied, rolling her eyes, before stealing the remote right out of his hand to start channel surfing.

Silence settled over them as she picked a random German romcom to watch and got more comfortable on the couch, putting her feet up on the coffee-table.

“Hey, you know I wasn't kidding about you being healed, you know that right?” said Wade when the girl on TV started hotly making out with her love interest.

“I know.” Hilly replied, leaning her head against his shoulder.

Things got heated for the couple on TV as they both lost their shirts and started dry-humping against a wall.

“Are they gonna have sex in the building's lobby?” asked Wade, voicing what Hilly had been thinking.

“I guess. Those romcoms are always so fucking weird.”

He snorted, making her smile, and they didn't talk until the movie was finished.

 

 

***

 

 

Two weeks later, Hilly was crawling through the vents of a building that was _supposed_ to host an alien-arm deal with Derek when her spider-sense made her stop dead in her tracks.

“What's wrong?” murmured her boss.

“I don't know,” she murmured back, biting on her lower lip.

“Is it your weird sixth sense?”

She rolled her eyes but nodded, making him curse.

“Get ready then, change of plan. We take them out as soon as possible and destroy the weapons.”

“I thought the whole goal of the mission was to _get_ those weapons.”

“Not when Spider-man bis is telling me that something bad's going to happen.”

Scoffing, Hilly started crawling again.

It took them a good five minutes to finally get out of the vents in the exact room the deal was happening, and as expected things had gone straight to hell. Half of the people present in the room were already dead or bleeding so much that they were going to be really soon, and the rest were firing bullets at each other.

Derek didn't lose time and immediately ran off to the far left side of the room, and Hilly was left in the middle, dodging bullets and other flying projectiles.

She grabbed the first guy she could find, took his gun straight out of his hand and threw him flying back. She made sure that he wasn't getting back up before turning around and walking to the place where the most fighting seemed to be happening.

A katana flew right past her and got embedded into someone's unconscious body and, without really thinking about it, Hilly grabbed it before continuing.

The world was really small, especially if you were involved with illegal arm deals, she realized as she followed the noises around a huge pile of boxes and came face to face with a gun held by a _very_ familiar red clad mercenary.

“Well, that's awkward.” he said.

“You forgot this.” she replied, smirking under her mask and handing him the katana.

“Aw, thanks!” he said, obviously beaming, before turning around and planting it in the chest of some guy who had just arrived and started to raise his gun in their direction. “What are you doing here?” he then asked, turning back around to face her.

“You know,” she shrugged, “working. You?”

“Same.”

“Good.” she replied before raising the gun she was still holding and turning around to shoot a woman who was approaching from behind her.

“Damn, you really weren't joking when you said you could aim now.” he commented, one of his hand gently grabbing her right shoulder.

He used his hand to pull her just a step back, so her back was against his chest and he could hook his chin over her other shoulder.

“Please, don't tell me you're finding this hot.”

“Do you _really_ want me to lie?” he asked, his other arm sneaking around her waist to pull her even closer.

Hilly huffed, rolling her eyes, but Derek spoke into her earpiece before she could reply to Wade.

“Parker where are you?”

“South side of the room. Did you find the weapons?”

“Detonation in twenty seconds.” he only replied.

Cursing, Hilly turned around in Wade's arms so they were were to face and quickly tackled him to the ground, trying to cover as much of his body as she could with hers and hoping that the pile of boxes were going to be enough to protect them.

“What the fuck are you doing?” asked Wade just as the first explosion resonated, shaking the whole building and, as expected, sending the pile of boxes to fall down on them.

Three more detonations went off before Derek finally told her to join him outside of the building.

“Fuck.” she muttered, getting up with difficulty and looking down at a weirdly immobile Wade. “Are you okay?”

“Why do you always try to protect me from explosions? I literally can't die from them, unlike you.”

“Must be my tiny heroic streak.” she replied, offering him her hand.

He accepted it and got up fast enough that he could wrap an arm around her waist again without her being able to stop it – not that she would have.

“I'm guessing your ninja boss is not far and it won't look good for you if he catch us together, but that was _fun_ , we should do it more often.”

“You're crazy.” she smiled.

He pecked her on the mouth, mask against mask and a ton of dust still floating around them, before grabbing his katana, putting it back where it belonged on his back and walking away with an extra sway to his hips.

She finally understood that line about loving to watch him go.

 

 

***

 

 

“ _Sooo_ , I feel like maybe we should talk a little more about this new life you have made for yourself.” said Wade once a furious Derek had marched her to her apartment, yelled at her about disappearing during a mission and left with promises of calling her sometime soon – not that she particularly wanted to talk to him after that.

Sighing, Hilly sat down on her couch next to him, took her mask off and pretended to be absorbed by what was happening out of her window.

“Come on, you know you can tell me, I won't judge.”

“I know.” she replied softly.

The problem was that she was judging herself after all the hard truths Derek had spat at her and was kind of scared of his reaction once he realized that she was as far from the girl he knew as was humanly possible.

Gone was the scared girl living with him and wearing his clothes. Gone, the fake superhero he had had to save so many times. Gone, the girl who had gone straight into shock after seeing him die.

Everything, gone.

He liked who she used to be, she knew that for a fact, but she wasn't sure he would still like who she had become. After all, appreciating someone who could kick asses was different than liking someone who had done some of the things she had in the past months.

“Hey Hilly, come on.” he repeated, grabbing her shoulder and forcing her to turn and face him.

He had taken his mask off too and was staring at her with his big and honest baby-blue eyes, making something in her chest squeeze uncomfortably.

“I...” she started before stopping to swallow around the lump of something she couldn't name in her throat. It was a weird mix between anxiety, dread and the full-force of realizing just how wrong and bad everything that she had done really was.

Wade squeezed her shoulder and smiled gently at her and she had one second during which all she could think about was clammy palms holding onto a gun for dear life, the voice in her left ear hissing “ _Take the shot Parker!_ ” for the fourth time and the man on the chair in front of her crying and begging her to spare him.

 _The first kill is never easy_ , she had been told afterward. _You did good. There's nothing else that could have been done._

That didn't erase the fact that she had killed a man – many men, in fact.

“I don't know how that happened,” she started, reaching with her left hand to grab the hand he didn't have on her shoulder, “but I've done some pretty bad shit.”

“Can't be worse than what I've done.” he replied, trying for a crooked smile that fell flat because of the worry clear as day in his eyes.

“He begged me.” she murmured as an answer, looking down at his fingers and squeezing them as if it would make it better. “He begged me to spare him, and I followed orders instead. I murdered him in cold blood.”

She couldn't even remember what he looked like, not really. She just remembered his blood coated blond hair and the way his voice had cracked as she had raised her gun and closed her eyes before pressing the trigger, the sound of the bullet firing deafening in the tiny office.

The next time she had opened her eyes, Derek was kneeling in front of her, blocking her view from the body and urging her to start moving if they didn't want to have problems.

Months later, and she still couldn't make sense of any of this.

Wade's hand left her shoulder and for a second she thought he was going to get up and leave, but he wrapped both of his arms around her instead and pulled her closer until she was resting her head against his neck, eyes closed, and just like that she couldn't keep it in anymore and started crying.

“It's okay,” he murmured against her hair as she curled her fingers into his t-shirt and started sobbing uncontrollably, “I've got you, it's okay, don't worry. I've got you.”

 

 

***

 

 

Wade was in the kitchen cooking diner when Hilly's phone rang and showed, for the first time in more than a year and a half, Peter's name. Usually, she would have panicked and probably not answered, but after her very long crying session and getting everything off her chest, she was feeling weirdly numb and distant from everything, and so she picked up.

“I'm sorry about that lunch, I didn't know Aunt May was planning to do this.” he said as soon as she said hello. “Johnny has also told me about his uh… visits to your place and I'm very sorry about that, I _swear_ I didn't know.”

“It's okay.” she replied flatly.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

Her twin sounded concerned, rightly so, but after all this time without ever reaching out for her and after leaving her for dead on a random street in New York right after she had saved his life, his concern felt more like mockery than anything else, and even if he was being sincere she really didn't want to tell him about her problems.

“Yeah I'm alright. Thanks for calling.” she replied right before ending the call and letting her phone fall next to her on the couch.

If she was lucky it would get lost between pillows for a day or two, until she found the strength to stop being so pathetic again.

“Hey did you say something?!” called Wade from the kitchen part of the room, bent over the stove and looking like he was trying to fry something.

“Nah, you're probably hearing voices again.”

“Ha ha. That's actually happened before, you know! You shouldn't joke about it!”

“How is this your life?”

He straightened up and turned around to face her just so that he could give her a toothy smile, earning a tiny one in return that made him lighten up even brighter before he was focusing back on the food.

“Say whatever you want,” he said after a minute, “but my life right now is kinda great and you know it.”

“I guess you're right.” she replied, biting down on her lower lip and feeling something in her chest tighten a little.

She knew for a fact that wherever Wade went, life turned from barely passable to great, but she really wasn't ready to tell him that.

**Author's Note:**

> I was so enraged by what happened tonight, I decided to canalize it into finally editing and posting this story.  
> As usual, comments are greatly appreciated so don't hesitate, even if they are very short!


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